Despite the “stay at home” orders and cancellations of face-to-face meetings, the Carolinas Region members have found ways to cope. We have held virtual stitch-ins, communicated through Facebook and texts, shared photos of our work, and found many other ways to support each other and to find comfort in our stitching.
FLORENCE (Florence, SC)
The Florence chapter could be said to have named 2019 The Year of the Biscornu. Pictured are some of the projects completed by members, from the petite project found in our chapter notebooks to kitted projects to originals.
For National Stitch In Public Day, the chapter stitched at the Barnes & Noble in Florence; this event gained us a new member.
CHICORA STITCHERS (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Chicora Stitchers met at the beginning of March, but April and May meetings have been cancelled, and who knows beyond that? In March we were working on the Lacy Scissors Case, an EGA Petite Project(Member login required). Here are photos of 3 completed examples.
President Anne Peacock is offering prizes from the “Chapter Stash” for projects completed in March, April and May. I, for one, don’t need much encouragement to sit and stitch a lot more! Our board meeting was held by conference call and Tuesday evening stitch-ins are now held using Zoom.
TRYON (New Bern, NC)
The Tryon Chapter is trying something new by having members volunteer to teach a class.
Kristine Cooke was our March volunteer. Attached is a picture of a squirrel that she designed and stitched in response to many asking her techniques for stitching furry animals. In her own words: “It is basically a thread-painting technique, using a photograph of the animal as a guide for shading and fur direction. I also showed our members a way of transferring an image onto fabric when one doesn’t have a light box, or wishes to stitch on black fabric. It involves cutting out a paper photo of the animal you wish to stitch, and tracing around the cutout. Then, cutting out large body parts (head, hip, tail), and placing those on the fabric on to trace. This results in a transferred pattern to stitch.”
THE LAUREL (Hendersonville, NC)
Oh, to be thirty again! The Laurel chapter celebrated its 30th birthday on March 5, 2020 in Hendersonville, NC.
The two-day celebration began with a workshop on Ukrainian embroidery, “Mini Grace” taught by Terri Bay, on Wednesday. The following day Terri presented a special lecture on whitework embroidery to the chapter. Whitework in many different forms was compared. There were beautiful samples and Terri shared here collection of out-of-print books on whitework.
The celebration continued with a quiche and salad luncheon followed by the cutting of a special birthday cake. There were beaded mountain laurel blossom party favors for everyone in attendance. A birthday game where each participant chose a birthday gift followed. Unique decorations made with buttons, sewing needles and thread were on each table.
Two charter chapter members, Alice Johnson and Cathryn Harrell were in attendance. Everyone had a good time and learned something in the process. Click here to see more photos from the Laurel Chapter’s 30th Anniversary.
– Janet Stewart & Sue Osterberg.
